Above: A new center positions Pitt Med to make musculoskeletal medicine a major focus, thanks to a gift from Orland Bethel’s foundation and a match from the University. Shown above: the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis. Image courtesy Hang Lin, School of Medicine.

More than ruining his weekend golf game, the acute pain in Orland Bethel’s neck and shoulders affected his ability to work efficiently, and work is something he takes much more seriously than golf, even at 86.

For the man who says, “My whole history of life has been the drive to get out and work,” being sidelined wasn’t easy to accept. He negotiated the pain until it put him in a wheelchair, because he couldn’t move his arms or legs without distress.

That’s when Bethel, founder of Hillandale Farms, one of the country’s largest egg producers, turned to Pitt’s Joon Lee, an MD and Orland Bethel Professor in Spine Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, for relief. Lee had completed a procedure on Bethel in 2014 at UPMC Presbyterian to treat spinal stenosis. Lee’s skill and genuine concern, and the success of that earlier procedure, prompted Bethel to seek his continued care.

The surgery on Bethel’s neck in 2016 restored his movement and relieved his pain. A grateful Bethel gave a gift to the University in 2019 to endow the professorship Lee holds.

But Bethel was inspired to do more, and in September he pledged $25 million to Pitt through the Orland Bethel Family Foundation to be matched equally by the University. The funds enable Pitt to elevate its study of musculoskeletal disorders by creating the Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center (BMRC).    

“When you get to this level, it’s a generational gift, a transformative gift,” Lee says. “The influence of this gift will be felt across the entire system—from young medical school students, through accomplished researchers, on to [those making] improvements in patient care.”

The gift launches an array of programs under the new center’s umbrella: the BMRC Core Laboratories, Bethel Research Fellows and an annual conference and seminar. Among the participating entities in the center are the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the School of Medicine, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Swanson School of Engineering and Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research.

Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences at Pitt and the John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine, says, “The center will support clinicians, investigators, trainees and students in areas that will bring hope to the hundreds of thousands who face [musculoskeletal] problems every day.”
 

Read more from the Fall 2023 issue.